A staff checks the names on the voters list during the general elections at a polling station in Fiji's capital city Suva on Dec 14, 2022. (SAEED KHAN / AFP)
SYDNEY – Early counting in Fiji's national election on Wednesday showed Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama's party trailing the opposition in provisional results from the Pacific island nation's elections office.
Voter turnout in the third democratic election since Bainimarama came to power in 2006 was less than 60 percent, which analysts said was the lowest in a decade.
His Fiji First party had attracted 24.19 percent of votes as of 10:30 pm (1030 GMT), behind the People's Alliance Party with 43.16 percent of votes, provisional results showed, with around 500 of 2,071 polling stations counted.
Fiji has a proportional representation system, where there is a single constituency
The election office said result updates were "temporarily on hold" shortly before 11 pm, and later said its election results app, used by the public, had errors.
Bainimarama is in a tight race against one-time prime minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, whose People's Alliance Party has formed a coalition with Fiji's oldest political party, the National Federation Party.
Fiji has a proportional representation system, where there is a single constituency.
Before the app was taken down, it showed People's Alliance candidate Peceli Vosanibola attracting the most votes, ahead of Bainimarama and Rabuka.
However, the Supervisor of Elections told media this was an error because Vosanibola had recorded only 63 votes in its results system.
Fiji's Attorney General and Fiji First general secretary Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum wrote on Facebook: "Vote tallying isn't a sprint – It's a marathon. The only numbers that matter are the final results."
Bainimarama has a high international profile for climate change advocacy and has been chairman of the Pacific Islands Forum, the regional diplomatic bloc, as it sought this year to manage rising security tensions between the United States and China.
Shailendra Singh, a political commentator and associate professor of Pacific journalism at the University of South Pacific in Fiji, said the voter turnout was the lowest since Fiji's constitution was reformed in 2013. The rising cost of living and the economy were major issues for voters, he said.
Bainimarama's Fiji First supporters campaigned on stability and progress, while the opposition said national debt was too high and questioned the state of democracy, he said.
ALSO READ: Fiji, moving villages inundated by rising seas, wants emitters to pay
"Critics of Fiji First feel that this one party has been in power for too long and maybe it’s time for a change," Singh told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Concerns expressed by opposition parties and civil society groups about media self-censorship caused by a punitive media law continued at this election, he said.
"The nature of democracy has been under question for some time – not all democracies are perfect and Fiji is trying, this is part of Fiji's journey of moving to a more democratic system," Singh said.
Fiji's government has rejected criticism by opposition parties about the media law.
A multinational observer group led by Australia, India and Indonesia includes 90 election observers who are also monitoring the national vote counting center.